很多学生在练习英文作文时，认为长句、难句或复杂句能够提升文章的语言质量，展示自己“深厚”的语言功底，并因此获得更高的分数。他们在备考复习时也花了很多精力在长句的练习上，考试时也会尽量使用长句。这种想法确实有一定的道理，因为很多考试如新托福的写作科目评分标准中确实有从语法或用词的多样性等角度考察语言质量的评分项目，考生如果能够熟练地运用各种句式写出精彩的长句，确实能给文章增色不少。

然而一味地追求句子的长度有时反而会牺牲句子的“可读性”，特别是对一些基础一般的学生来说，有时生硬地追求长句反而破坏了句子的句法准确性。下面，将为考生们列举一些写得并不成功的长句，并给出如何修改的建议：

建议一： 避免空洞的单词和词组

1. 一些空洞的单词或词组根本不能为句子带来任何相关的或重要的信息，完全可以被删掉。比如下面的句子：

When all things are considered, young adults of today live more satisfying lives than those of their parents, in my opinion.

这句话当中的“when all things are considered”和“in my opinion“都显得多余。完全可以去掉。改为：

Young adults of today live more satisfying lives than their parents.

2. 有些空洞和繁琐的表达方式可以进行替换，例如：

Due to the fact that our grandparents were under an obligation to help their parents, they did not have the options that young people have at this point in time.

“due to the fact that”就是一个很典型的繁琐的表达方式的例子，可以替换，简化为下面的表达方式：

Because our grandparents were obligated to help their parents, they did not have the options that young people have now.

建议二： 避免重复

1. 尽量避免重复使用同样的词汇。或者有的时候虽然词汇没有重复，但意思却有重复。这时候可以做一些简化的工作。例如下面这个例子:

The farm my grandfather grew up on was large in size.

large 对一个farm来说就是size方面的large，所以in size可以去掉，改为：

The farm my grandfather grew up on was large.

更简洁的表达方式为：

My grandfather grew up on a large farm.

2. 有时一个词组可以用一个更简单的单词来替换，例如：

My grandfather has said over and over again that he had to work on his parents' farm.

这里的over and over again就可以改为repeatedly，显得更为简洁：

My grandfather has said repeatedly that he had to work on his parents' farm.